Accountability – cindygoyette.com

The Real Reason Change Initiatives Fail — and What to Do Instead

July 7, 2025 | Leadership | No Comments

Change is everywhere — and yet, most change initiatives still fail. Depending on the study, failure rates hover between 60–70%. Despite the best-laid plans, transformation efforts stall out, produce mediocre results, or quietly disappear altogether.

Why? Most organizations will tell you it’s due to “culture.” That’s the safe explanation. But the real reason is harder to admit:

Change doesn’t fail because of culture — it fails because of leadership.

I’ve seen this pattern play out repeatedly in my career, and it’s echoed constantly by professionals in my network — especially those working in HR operations, OD, and change management. They get brought in under the banner of transformation, innovation, or growth. The executive says they’re ready to scale, streamline, or modernize. But soon, the cracks start to show.

These leaders have already cycled through outside experts. They’ve spent large sums of money on consultants, playbooks, workshops. They say they want change — but deep down, they don’t actually want to change themselves. More often than not, they’re reacting to pressure: from the board, from investors, or from public scrutiny triggered by performance failures.

And here’s how it usually plays out:

Expert recommendations are ignored. “We don’t do it that way here.”
Internal hires are moved into critical roles they aren’t qualified for — not for development, but to avoid tough conversations.
Outside consultants are brought in for optics, not outcomes. “We hired the right people” becomes the excuse, not the strategy.
Culture gets blamed when momentum dies, even though the executive team is responsible for shaping and reinforcing that very culture.

The uncomfortable truth:

🔹 Culture is the shadow of leadership.

🔹 Change fails not because people resist it — but because leaders resist leading it.

Executives often claim they want transformation, but what they really want is transformation that doesn’t disrupt their comfort, question their decisions, or require them to be different. They want change that keeps everything else the same. That’s not change — that’s theater.

So instead of confronting tough truths — like unqualified leaders in critical roles, outdated ways of working, or unchecked performance issues — they compromise. They settle for mediocrity. They build the appearance of change while avoiding the accountability that drives it. And then they point fingers.

So, what does work? What should leaders do instead?

Here are five truths that separate performative change from real transformation:

✅ Start with the mirror. Change begins with self-awareness. Ask yourself: Am I actually willing to change? Am I role modeling the behaviors I expect from others? You don’t need to have all the answers, but you do need humility and courage. If you’ve never led this kind of transformation before, get help. That’s leadership.

✅ Listen to the experts you hire. You brought them in for their neutral perspective and experience. Let them challenge assumptions, poke holes in the plan, and guide the way. If it feels uncomfortable, that’s a sign you’re doing the right work.

✅ Hire for capability, not comfort. If your OD or Change Management hires can’t confidently assess readiness, influence stakeholders, and execute change with discipline and precision — you didn’t hire for transformation. You hired for optics. Don’t confuse familiarity with effectiveness.

✅ Create accountability before culture. Culture is not a vibe — it’s a result. It reflects what gets rewarded, tolerated, and ignored. If underperformance has no consequence, mediocrity becomes the culture. Accountability is the bedrock. Without it, nothing sticks.

✅ Lead visibly and consistently. Change is social. It spreads through what people see — not what they read in a memo. If you’re not modeling new behaviors, no one else will either. And your direct reports? They need to champion the change alongside you. If they’re not bought in, the effort stops with them.

The bottom line

Change is possible. But it requires leaders to stop outsourcing the hard work and start owning it.

So the next time you’re tempted to blame the culture, ask yourself: What am I reinforcing, tolerating, or avoiding that created this?

Because if you’re blaming the culture, you’re probably part of the problem — and you also hold the key to the solution.

PEOPLE MATTER in Business.

Cindy Goyette, SPHR, MAOM, CC – cindygoyette.com 2025

By Coach Cindy

Internal customers and suppliers. Are your employees clear as to who is who?

July 7, 2025 | Talent Management | No Comments

When I worked at a management training and consulting firm at the beginning of my career, I learned multiple concepts that have served me well throughout my professional life. Personal Accountability was one, and Total Quality was a close second. If you don’t know about it – Total Quality Management (TQM) was born out of the manufacturing industry (think Henry Ford and assembly lines creating cars) and it was the prequel to ISO 9000, Lean Manufacturing, and Six-Sigma methodologies. At their essence, they are managerial approaches related to organizational effectiveness that seek to improve human and company performance by eliminating defects and the waste of physical resources, time, effort, and talent while assuring quality in organizational processes and production.

What I learned at that time was through a simplified experiential learning experience where the class participants were given: 1) a job description, 2) direction to who their manager was and 3) the timeframe expected for them to accomplish their task. [Also keep in mind, the exercise was super compressed on purpose in order to add pressure to complete it and move the class forward.] The class was then divided into two ‘assembly lines’ where we were asked to create a product with only the 3 pieces of information. We were given a brief amount of time to read our job description, the timer started, and we were off on doing our assigned tasks. The room was very quiet during the experience because part of the directions said, ‘no talking among yourselves.’ Everyone hurried through their tasks as the facilitator yelled out milestone times – ‘10 more minutes’, then ‘5 more minutes’, until he said to STOP.

The debrief was interesting. We were scored first on how many ‘units’ (quantity) of the ‘product’ we made. Second, we were scored on how many of the units were completed to the quality expectation (zero defects). While I have no idea what the actual numbers were – we might have had 3 out of 20 that made the quality cut. The other assembly line had a similar outcome.

In round two of this experiential learning exercise, we were given: 1) updated, more detailed job descriptions, 2) the ability to speak to our ‘manager’ and ask questions during the process and, 3) the same timeframe to accomplish the same task. Again, we were given a brief amount of time to read our new job description, ask questions to our manager and when the timer started, we were off on creating a new batch of products.

This time when the clock stopped, we had about 25 units (up slightly from the first batch) so our quantity improved. When the units were checked for quality, we had about 15 that made the cut – which was a 60% improvement, and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. The competing team had similar results, so the room was buzzing with excitement and chatter. When we debriefed the second time, we discussed our newly acquired awareness about what had transpired.

With individualized and detailed expectations, clear direction from our manager, and increased team communication, everyone better understood their job duties and performance expectations. With the stated encouragement to speak to our manager to get context and clarification – we had vastly different outcomes in the same amount of time. Some other learnings we had were related to clarifying who your internal ‘customers’ and ‘suppliers’ are AND understanding that employees can be BOTH depending on where they sit in a team and which department they work in.

Having done many organizational assessments in my career, I can say that most processes within companies are cross functional (i.e. span several departments) from beginning to end. That day in training, it was clear us that: 1) our ‘customer’ may be the person next to us in our team who depends on us to do our part of the work so they can take it and do their part AND, 2) our ‘customer’ may also be 2 or 3 steps away from us in a completely different department. Either way, our individual work output from both a quality and time perspective – positively or negatively – affected our customer’s ability to do their job effectively. Their work relied on our work to get completed.

I’ve never forgotten that concept since learning it a couple decades ago. Those simple but powerful learnings about the need to clarify roles and responsibilities with team members and other departments is a huge part of organizational effectiveness. And the need to define who is the ‘customer’ and who is the ‘supplier’ is super important to help teams achieve goals. And these principles hold true regardless of whether your company makes a product or provides a service because they apply to how work gets done in your company through people, systems and processes.

The way to improve the execution of work, and therefore increase employee productivity is 1) to have clear job descriptions, 2) for individuals and teams to share their job descriptions with each other to understand what each person is working to accomplish, 3) to openly discuss which role they hold in any and all processes they use to do their work – as they may be a supplier to some team members but a customer to others of that same team, and 4) set expectations with each other as to what outcome is needed (quality) and by when (timing) for all team members to help each other complete their collective work to deadlines. Some companies even take the concept in #4 to the next level by creating service level agreements, or SLAs, that outline the level of performance expected, the timing of completion, and what happens if those expectations are not met.

What I find over and over again in organizations is they behave in silos with little communication about where the boundaries touch between different departments. Leaders need to talk about what they do and how work gets done in their respective functions. Leaders also need to talk about the relationship between their departments, roles and responsibilities within them and what their expectations are so everyone can collectively get their work done. In addition to increasing productivity, if you want to elevate personal accountability in your company, consider having a team discussion about customer-supplier relationships and service expectations. With team feedback, you can craft better service level agreements and more measurable performance metrics.

As I always say, people don’t show up to work to suck at their jobs – and when I ask them what the problem is – the answer more than 95% of the time is related to there being a lack of management direction, unclear expectations of what they should be doing, nonexistent or ineffective communication within a team, ineffective systems and tools with which they do their work, and inconsistent organizational processes.

If your team members aren’t clear about their individual job duties and performance expectations, it inhibits their ability to directly, or indirectly, create and deliver the product or service your company provides its external customers.
If your managers can’t clarify individual job responsibilities and performance expectations, articulate direction, or block and tackle obstacles their direct reports have – they are impeding employee productivity that enables business success.
And, if you don’t have time bound goals and objectives that everyone’s work is aligned to, and/or any of your managers continually let employees off the hook for missing deadlines you are impeding the larger organization to execute the business’s mission.

Organizational effectiveness refers to how well an organization achieves its defined objectives — the very thing the company is in business to do. OE encompasses a company’s ability to produce its products or services while maintaining a productive workforce and optimizing its resources. It integrates strategic management, project management, leadership quality (especially amount senior management), operational efficiency, innovation capability and adaptability to change. Managerial competency is a significant driver of organizational effectiveness, particularly in environments where constant change and agility are valued.

PEOPLE MATTER in Business.

Cindy Goyette, SPHR, MAOM, CC – cindygoyette.com 2025

By Coach Cindy

Why Organizational Design (OD) is a Business Imperative, Not Just an HR Function

July 7, 2025 | Talent Management | No Comments

We have all witnessed firsthand how business landscapes evolve, often faster than organizations can adapt. The most successful organizations don’t just react to change — they anticipate it. And at the heart of this adaptability lies Organizational Design (OD). It’s more than a set of HR processes or structural tweaks to org charts; it’s a powerful business discipline and tool that drives agility, efficiency, and alignment across an entire organization.

So why, then, do many companies still view organizational design as an HR responsibility, separate from the day-to-day operations of the business?

The Disconnect Between HR and Operations

Having been a Chief Operations Officer and company owner prior to moving into a HR career, I have seen a disconnect more often than not. Business leaders mistakenly assume that OD is purely a function of the HR department. They wait for HR to facilitate organizational change. HR, on the other hand, assumes that it is Operations responsibility to initiate organizational change. And, depending on what HR does for the company, many HR teams don’t even have people on staff that know how to do Organizational Design.

While HR plays a pivotal role in the implementation of change, Organizational Design is a critical business strategy. It should be aligned directly with the organization’s mission, vision, and strategic goals.

At the highest level, OD is about designing systems, roles, and structures that enable the organization to execute its strategy efficiently. When the design of an organization is disconnected from its strategic vision, employees and leaders alike are left scrambling to make sense of their roles, contributing to silos, inefficiencies, and disengagement.

The Strategic Role of Organizational Design

Organizational Design is about optimizing how work gets done, ensuring that roles are structured to maximize both individual performance and cross-functional collaboration. It’s the framework that enables an organization to adapt to changing market conditions, foster innovation, and enhance the employee experience.

I learned firsthand that the following three things are key elements of OD that are critical to driving business performance:

1. Aligning Structure with Strategy

An effective organizational design ensures that the structure directly supports the business strategy – and by that, I mean, its business model. It should answer the question, ‘what are all the things we need to do to make this make money?’

In today’s dynamic marketplace, organizations often need to shift from rigid hierarchical structures to more flexible, networked models that can pivot quickly.

2. Empowering Cross-Functional Collaboration

Once that finite list of ‘all the things we need to do to make this make money’ is created, successful organizations create functions (aka departments) that make sense while breaking down silos and encouraging collaboration across them. Leaders of individual business functions need to talk openly about what they do and ensure there is minimal to no overlap in responsibilities and roles.

The right OD approach fosters seamless communication and shared accountability across departments, which in turn leads to faster decision-making and problem-solving.

3. Building Organizational Resilience

A well-designed organization can weather uncertainty and adapt to change without losing momentum. Effective OD helps businesses stay resilient by building a culture of continuous learning and empowering leaders at all levels to drive change.

What Does It Take to Get It Right?

To move beyond the “HR-only” view of OD, business leaders, especially those responsible for back-office operations functions like general management, finance, accounting, IT, HR, payroll, marketing, PR, legal, purchasing, etc. must be actively engaged in the design process. HR should act as a strategic partner to business operations, ensuring that organizational design is aligned with the broader business objectives.

Here’s how HR leaders can ensure successful OD initiatives:

OD must be directly tied to business outcomes. It should reflect the company’s business model (i.e. how it makes money). HR should work closely with leadership to identify strategic priorities and align the organizational structure accordingly.
Consider the employee experience: Companies make money because the people and technology within them. Organizational design isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about creating an environment where employees feel empowered and connected to the organization’s mission. Incorporate feedback from employees at all levels to ensure the design supports a positive work culture.
Keep the future in mind: As we move into an increasingly agile and digital world, organizations need to be future-proof. OD must not only address current needs but anticipate future shifts in technology, workforce demographics, and global markets.

Organizational Design is not just an HR initiative—it’s a business imperative. The organizations that succeed in today’s fast-evolving, chaotic world are the ones that embrace a holistic approach to OD, ensuring that their structure, strategy, and culture are in lockstep. As HR professionals, we have the opportunity to lead this transformation, working in tandem with business leaders to create organizations that are not only efficient but also resilient and adaptable.

People Matter in Business.

Cindy Goyette, SPHR, MAOM, CC – cindygoyette.com 2025

By Coach Cindy

From HR Generalist to Organizational Strategist: Why I’m Pivoting After All These Years

July 7, 2025 | Talent Management | No Comments

After nearly three decades in Human Resources working in the capacity of a Swiss army knife accomplishing all aspects of HR operations from recruiting to M&A integrations — I’m making a deliberate shift. I’m pivoting my focus to Organizational Design, Organizational Effectiveness, Change Management, and Organizational Development.

Not because I’ve outgrown HR — but because I’ve known for a long time and recent events have made it more acute — that the future of HR success lies in how we shape organizations to execute strategy, adapt to change, and enable people to thrive. And that’s where I plan to spend the rest of my career: at the intersection of business operations and people strategy.

The Evolution of My Career (and HR Itself)

Many who know me don’t know that I actually started my career in Marketing Communications out of college. I was fascinated with psychology, motivation and how we use communication to lead and connect to one another. And, in my late 20s, I inherited a business which permanently altered my career trajectory. Overnight, I was a Chief Operations Officer leading the operation of a 10-year-old franchise of a national company. While I didn’t have a business degree, I proceeded to earn one through my own blood, sweat and tears over the next four years.

Using the degree I did have and some innate talents of organization, leadership and tenacity, I changed the financial outcomes of the business and after 4 years of 200% growth year-over-year successfully sold it. That experience informed my choice to move into Human Resources. I wanted to work in the space that connected business strategy and operations, leadership competency, and human behavior because I had seen firsthand that companies make money as a result of the efforts humans make who work in them.

As I have said since then, PEOPLE, more specifically, human beings and their behaviors – are the core of business. Executive leaders have control over all aspects of their companies: products and services, strategy, direction, technology systems, organizational processes, communication – and how things get done – CULTURE. Without a solid understanding of human behavior and motivation, many executives make business decisions about those aspects which consequently affect their people. As a result, employees’ behavior either HELPS or HINDERS a wide range of business activities that lead to increased, or decreased, PROFITS.

For most of my career, I’ve been a Human Resources Generalist in the truest sense of the word. I’ve sat in every HR chair, built HR functions from the ground up, led teams through acquisition integrations and divestitures, implemented HR technology infrastructure, and partnered with senior leaders to solve complex workforce challenges. I’ve seen what works — and a lot more lately what doesn’t work and derails good intentions.

What those experiences have shown me over and over is that even the best HR strategies fall flat when they aren’t embedded into the design of the business itself. You end up with leadership teams that aren’t aligned on how decisions get made. Org charts that don’t reflect how work actually gets done. Structures that crush agility and frustrate talent. Without the right organizational design, HR becomes reactive. And without change capability, even the best-designed organizations stagnate.

Where I’m Going Next: Building Organizations for the Future

What excites me most now is getting back to my roots and working with leaders to enable organizations to become more resilient, adaptive, and aligned.

That means focusing on:

Organizational Design: Creating structures that enable clarity, speed, and collaboration
Organizational Effectiveness: Ensuring companies have the right chairs, right talent and right tools to be successful
Change Management: Designing change that people can absorb, adopt, and own
Organizational Development: Building leadership and culture that sustain high performance

These are not siloed disciplines. They are strategic levers to enable business transformation—and HR should be at the helm, not the sidelines.

Why It Matters (Now More Than Ever)

In today’s environment of constant disruption—AI, remote work, shifting talent expectations—organizations can’t afford misalignment between their structure, strategy, and people. It’s not enough to react to change. We need to design for it. That’s what I’m here to do.

What You Can Expect From Me

Over the next few months, I’ll be writing about what I’ve learned — and what I’m still learning— about:

Designing organizations that actually deliver on business strategy
Building cultures that enable execution, not just engagement
Making change stick (without exhausting your people)
Ensuring managers and leaders have the skills they need to be successful

This isn’t about theory. It’s about making organizations work better—smarter, faster, and more human.

If you’re a business leader, an HR peer, or someone navigating organizational change, I hope you’ll follow along and share your own insights. Because designing better organizations is work we all own.

People Matter in Business.

Cindy Goyette, SPHR, MAOM, CC – cindygoyette.com 2025

By Coach Cindy

The core of Business is Humans; the core of Human Resources is Data

July 7, 2025 | Organizational Effectiveness | No Comments

Throughout my career, I’ve asked thousands of employees and managers what they think the primary function of HR is in their business. Most have told me one of two things 1) to find and hire talent, OR 2) to defend management and to police employee behaviors (which includes firing people). Oh, and I should say, the third runner up would be 3) to pay employees.

From my perspective, after 25+ years in Human Resources operations, the job of HR even before serving managers and employees in the ways stated above is to be stalwart stewards of employee data. In addition, to share the necessary parts of that same HR data to other company functions (finance, IT, business ops, etc.) so leaders can make business decisions, analyze labor costs for purposes of profit and loss, pay employees, and measure human productivity and organizational performance.

As part of their stewardship, every HR person should put the utmost priority on data integrity to ensure it always reflects the truth. In several companies I’ve worked for, we talked about our HR data as “the one source of truth” and painstakingly ensured we centralized, in one repository, all information that had initially been in multiple places, hard copy files, or disparate systems. As HR departments have transitioned from manual, paper-based processes to implementing HR information systems/platforms to automate activities – the goal is to remove potential human data entry errors but also to ensure data integrity. In contrast, if the HR team is not rigorous in its handling of its critical data – making it inaccurate at its core – the HR department loses credibility in the business that can be difficult to win back.

Anyone who has read my blogs or articles before, knows I like a good origin story. I believe in all things that you must learn how they began so you can best apply that history to the change you are about to cause when you implement the solution to a problem.

Prior to the invention of electronic HR Information Systems (aka HRIS), all of a company’s Human Resource data was housed in physical documents within multiple types of confidential employee records (personal employment data, recruiting, payroll, benefits, performance reviews, and other types of correspondence, etc.) Any reporting out to the business of that data was manually pulled and compiled by HR professionals mining their employee files and centralizing the data into spreadsheets and other software.

Over time, the centralized data repository HR had created – whether on a hard drive or one of the initial electronic HR systems – became critical and highly valuable to the business and still is today. During mergers and acquisition events, it was a usual practice for the acquiring company to request all the hard copy HR document files be sent to ‘headquarters.’ Then those documents would be painstakingly scanned to ensure all the historic employee information and data changes were captured for record-keeping compliance purposes and legal defensibility if needed. By owning this critical aspect of the business operations, Human Resources was elevated from being mere administrative file keepers to being the strategic service and data providers that it always has been regardless of whether business leaders initially saw it that way. HR ‘owns’ the data related to the most expensive line item on a company’s General Ledger – its employees. That’s a pretty serious responsibility!

While historically, employees have always had the right to request access to their employee data file contents, in recent years, global data privacy laws, the expansion of pay transparency laws, and employee litigation for unfair employment practices has put heightened attention on the very information HR is steward of. The onus continues to be on the HR department to be able to produce all of the historic changes to employee data and all other forms of documentation from the beginning of their employment, if requested. And legal, financial or compliance authorities don’t care if it is in physical form or electronic in nature – they just care if it is thorough and accurate with dates, reasons and approvals. That includes every type of data change that can occur – which are many. And whether employees, people managers, or HR people initiate the data changes, each of those changes need to have a justifiable business reason and appropriate approvals. And for those reasons, it is why over the last few decades HR departments, large and small, have chosen to install and/or upgrade HR Information Systems with automated workflows in them so there are clear steps and accountabilities along an electronic trail, and data changes are consistently handled every time.

Again, the core responsibility of every HR department is data related to nearly all aspects of the people working for the business. Because of its importance, if you don’t have experienced HR professionals on your team that have a full spectrum of HR operations knowledge and HR systems design experience, you have a problem. Ownership of your HR data is an inside job. Remember my comment about compliance and legal defensibility? You don’t want to leave any responsibilities for your data accuracy to an external vendor. If your core data is inaccurate due to flawed recordkeeping, lack of compatibility to other systems, poor data transfers that left out key information, lack of established processes and documentation, lack of data fields needed to collect the necessary data you are required to keep – you have a BIGGER problem because pointing to the vendor you bought your system from is not a legal defense.

During my career in corporate HR and HR consulting, I have been actively involved with M&A integrations and many HR transformation initiatives because HR departments have been moving from paper to electronic platforms for decades as the focus on HR data has become more elevated and acute. And what I have found makes or breaks these sometimes massive change management events – is the state of the data prior to a system implementation, the competency of the individuals who comprise the project team, and the combined understanding of all parties with what the current state HR operations is in relation to what HR Information Systems are capable of automating. A mismatch of what work is actually done by the HR team members to the HR system functionality can be detrimental to a successful choice being made and an implementation going smoothly.

Some examples I have seen of flawed HRIS implementations include:

No connection between the HRIS to the General Ledger because finance and accounting were not involved in the system selection or design. That glaring error negatively affected payroll processing, labor costing activities, financial reporting and required a lot of manual manipulations of data outside the system – which made data accuracy and compliance tricky.
Separate modules of an HRIS being installed one at a time (ATS, Compensation, Performance Management, Payroll, etc.) because the company was too cheap to implement the whole system at once. By doing so, without using the whole system as it was designed, the HR team became reliant on manual workarounds so as new modules were installed, not all of the team members adopted the system changes – which made consistency tricky.
One system did not have the functionality needed to automate some of the company’s compensation programs. This was a mismatch to system needs and system functionality. And it meant the company’s pay programs were all calculated manually on spreadsheets outside of the system that should have been able to do the calculations leaving important activities open to human interpretation and errors – which made data accuracy tricky.
And last but not least, a system where project team members did not have a clear understanding of what data fields should be used, what data would go in them and what business functions would ‘own’ them. By using a limited amount of available data fields, it caused significant issues when data was transferred from an old HR system because the former had more data fields than the new database. The outcome resulted in the team losing pertinent HR data in the transfer. This meant the new system was already flawed at set-up because widely known HR and finance related data fields were not there from the beginning. Also due to the lack of proper data fields, some existing ones were inappropriately connected to other aspects of the database causing complex data issues to occur when mass data changes were made – which again made data accuracy tricky.

I could tell you MANY more (horror) stories about the millions of dollars in sunk costs related to poorly chosen HR systems, systems that were sound choices for the business but improperly implemented, and even extreme cases where a system had to be completely scrapped and replaced. None of these scenarios are optimal if your business is relying on HR to provide ‘the one source of truth’ and you can’t provide it.

The HR Information System you choose can make or break your HR team’s success and ability to provide critical data to the business. The one you choose should not be taken lightly, not only because of cost, but because your business is relying on it. And please note that I said, ‘the one.’ If you haven’t already surmised by my commentary that you need to commit to a wholistic solution, I will say it again. After working in HR departments at the beginning of my career that had to creatively mine data out of disparate hardcopy files and electronic systems; and, after seeing many other HR departments deploy separate HR tools one at a time that didn’t effectively speak to each other – look at full solutions (i.e. comprehensive and covering end-to-end HR activities).

As you look to purchase, you need to include not only subject matter experts from each subfunction of the HR team (TA, HR Ops, Comp, Benefits, Payroll, T&D); but, also representatives of the other business functions in the company when doing system due diligence, product evaluations and making decisions. Then, research the origin story of every system you evaluate because, no two HR systems are 100% alike. If you do not know, there are HR systems whose origin stories include starting out as 1) a finance system that now includes HR functionality; 2) a payroll processing system that expanded to include HR functionality; 3) an ERP that expanded to include HR specific functionality; 4) others that were created specifically to perform 1 aspect of HR, for example, performance management, that were bought by other tech companies who bundled a bunch of separate HRIS products together as their solution, and 5) some that were designed from the beginning to do all end-to-end HR activities and easily connect with the surrounding business systems.

I am not here to pitch a specific product so don’t ask me what HR system I prefer or would recommend because my answer is ‘it depends.’ Every HR department is different. While there are general responsibilities that most HR departments have in common, no two companies have the same HR support model because of their unique company culture, how the entire business is organized, and what type(s) of product or service the company sells. You need to choose the HR system that 1) aligns with what your company does/sells, and 2) the other business systems it operates with beyond your HR function. And then, it has to align with 3) how your HR department is set up to support the company (i.e. decentralized, COE model, etc.) and 4) it should have the functionality that allows for all of the activities your HR department is asked to perform.

I have always said, “Employees don’t show up to work to suck at their jobs.” Their productivity is discretionary and when you give them poor tools and systems that make their work harder, they are frustrated and unproductive (and some will eventually leave your employ due to it). In a HR department that should be focused on providing quality data to the business AND serving the employees that make the products and services your company sells – it is important to get this key system right.

People Matter in Business

Cindy Goyette, SPHR, MAOM, CC – cindygoyette.com 2024

By Coach Cindy

Employee Productivity is about Discretionary Effort

July 7, 2025 | Talent Management | No Comments

I was reading Gallup’s 2022 report about Employee Engagement and it said ’employees who are not engaged or who are actively disengaged cost the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity, according to their State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report. That’s equal to 11% of global GDP.’

We all know engaged employees are productive employees and we know why engagement matters but what are you doing about it as a leader in your company?

When I wrote the 10 Simple Truths about People series, the issues employees were having with their employers weren’t hugely different than they are today aside from what COVID-19 did to the location of where people now work. SIMPLE TRUTH #6 is Employees want to be heard and understood. Keep reading to understand how this relates to employee productivity.

As leaders communicating all types of information to your company, please know your people, in return, want to communicate with YOU. They want to give you input and feedback based on their perspectives. However, in order to have the ongoing dialogue your employees expect, you need to be receptive to hearing what they have to say and be prepared to make behavioral and/or operational changes needed to address their concerns. Your employees’ beliefs, thoughts and actions have a direct impact on your company’s bottom line. The closer you are to understanding the daily activities, conversations and beliefs of your people, the more effectively you can manage expectations and lead the business. The further removed you are from the collective ‘pulse’ of your people, the higher the chance your company has low productivity due to misaligned activity, waste of resources and frustrated employees disengage.

EMPLOYEES WANT TO BE HEARD

Because your employees hold the key to productivity, business improvement, innovation, and ultimately, the profits of your company, you need to provide ways for them to speak to you and to be heard. Not providing avenues to hear from employees, limits your ability to learn useful information, process improvements and other creative ideas they have to share. Besides that, you hire smart, talented, insightful people who want to be involved and who know how to solve your business problems – you should be tapping into your valuable investment and largest cost to your company.

Stay interviews have been around for nearly 10 years now and still few companies are doing them. These are when you interview current employees and solicit feedback you need to hear while these talented people are still working for you (i.e. “what is working?” “NOT working?” etc.) The resulting data is more useful and relevant to improving your organization and/or addressing concerns than if you wait to do an Exit Interview with someone who has resigned and is soon leaving your company. The stay interview is concerned with keeping great talent by giving leaders and managers a chance to address potential issues in real-time. The more popular Exit Interview is retrospective and doesn’t help you keep a talented employee who is walking away.

The second half of SIMPLE TRUTH #6 is harder to accomplish but worth the effort if you intend to keep high performers, increase productivity and ultimately – profits. In order to show you understand your employees, you first need to know what they expect.

EMPLOYEES WANT TO BE UNDERSTOOD

What employees expect from their employer is not the same across the board. Read that again because it’s important. Your employees all come to work for your company for different reasons. And, over the course of each person’s employment with your company, those reasons change priority as time passes and their career evolves. It is important for you to understand what I call – employment variables – that both potential and current employees make their work and life decisions based on. Psychologists usually refer to them as tangible and intangible benefits or rewards. They include, but are not limited to:

Company culture (behavioral expectations, values)
Company mission
Job content
Job title/level
Manager quality (leadership ability and job competence)
Ability to learn and grow (both formal and informal Training & Development)
Clear career path (line of sight of how to get promoted)
Up-to-date tools and technology (resources to be successful)
Caliber of team members
Compensation (fair market value)
Benefits (medical, paid time off, 401k match, etc.)
Job location (length of commute, if applicable)
Physical work environment (if going to an office)
Financial stability of company
Company’s diversity, equity & inclusion initiatives
Company’s actions re: giving back – philanthropy, the environment
Etc.

Whether they’re candidates interviewing for a position, or current employees, people base their employment decisions and discretionary efforts on a combination of the employment variables listed above that are important to them. On a regular basis, they review those variables and determine whether they want to spend their time and energy (discretionary effort) contributing to their job and the company for which they work. Thinking “is it still worth my time?” They continually gauge if they are getting what they expect from their company and their resulting engagement (productivity) reflects where they are. While you control many things in your company, discretionary effort on the part of your employees is the one thing they control that you don’t.

Here’s how it looks: Ed Employee is a top performer. His top 3 employment variables are job location, caliber of team members and compensation. Some of his teammates have recently left to work for other companies, his recent pay increase wasn’t what he expected and didn’t reflect his high performance rating, and company leadership announced it is moving the office 20 miles from its current location – further from Ed’s home. For these reasons, Ed is now an unhappy employee. His level of engagement decreased because his current reality is out of sync with his expectations. Ed’s manager will probably see a change in his attitude and behavior including absenteeism – and Ed will likely pursue new employment making his productivity lower as well until he accepts a new job and leaves.

Another example is Susie Star, also a top performer in a growing start-up. Her top 3 employment variables are Manager quality, tools/resources, and company benefits. She is mid-career and needs a manager who has deep work experience and subject matter expertise to teach her some of her job responsibilities that are new to her. The company is funded but spending is not equitable across departments at this time. And while it has basic benefits, saving for retirement is important to her but the company has a 1 year waiting period to contribute to its 401k. Unfortunately, her manager just gave notice and is leaving in 2 weeks, the budget for her to get the new software she needs to do her job effectively has been put on hold; and, HR informed her that company leadership was not willing to lessen the wait period for 401k enrollment this year to allow employees to begin contributing prior to their one-year anniversary of employment. For these reasons, high energy Susie has now turned sour towards her situation. Her productivity (discretionary effort) has immediately lessened while she decides if she will stay with the company given the changes or look for a position somewhere else.

THE ENGAGEMENT EQUATION

Employee Expectations – Current Reality (What They’ve Received) = ENGAGEMENT

In order to more fully understand employee expectations and the variables impacting their engagement, leaders and managers need to solicit different information than what current employee satisfaction and engagement surveys measure. Surveys and internal interviews need to ask: Of this list of Employment Variables, which are your top 3-5? Then, on a regular basis managers & HR should be asking: “What have you received in relation to that same list?” These questions, in addition, to the usual ones like: “What could be improved for you to be more engaged?” and “How satisfied are you with your benefits?” will result in better data.

If you’ve read my articles before, you know a Cindy-ism is – ‘People don’t come to work to suck at their jobs.’ They come to work expecting to be successful and do something meaningful with their time and energy. However, if they don’t get what they need to be successful from your company (i.e. the tools/resources, training, a Manager with the right amount of experience, or there aren’t policies or programs that support their values and needs of belonging) your employees will not produce at a high level.

If you understand my equation and apply it to how you measure engagement you have a better chance of increasing productivity. Remember: company profits are a result of human behavior. Your employees’ behaviors either help – or hinder – business activities that lead to increased, or decreased productivity, customer satisfaction, product/service innovation – and ultimately profits.

Company profits are a result of human behavior. Your employees’ behaviors either help, or hinder, business activities that lead to increased or decreased productivity, customer satisfaction, product/service innovation – and ultimately profits. ~ Cindy Goyette, SPHR

The more you understand the individual expectations of your employees, the more effectively you can lead. When you start asking the right questions, your employees will know you, in earnest, want to understand them. When you then change things within your organization based on their feedback, your employees will know they are being heard. This SIMPLE TRUTH is important to them — and your company profits reflect it.

People Matter in Business.

Cindy Goyette, SPHR, MAOM, CC – cindygoyette.com 2022

By Coach Cindy

Finding Your Tribe: How Culture Fit Affects Your Job Search

April 15, 2019 | Talent Management | No Comments

One of the biggest trends in talent recruiting is company’s screening candidates for ‘culture fit’. And, even though culture fit has been a best practice in talent and recruiting strategy for decades in more progressive and people-focused companies – more recently medium, small and start-up companies are understanding its importance and implementing relevant screening activities.

Candidates screening activities now may include skills questionnaires, behavioral assessments, personality profiles, etc. as part of the recruitment process in addition to initial job qualification screens done by applicant tracking systems and recruiters. Now a recruiter may do their usual phone screen with a candidate to ask about job goals, why they want to work there, review high level experience and inquire about compensation expectations to further screen; and, in addition, they may send a link to an online assessment for the candidate to complete in order to screen for culture fit and reduce the candidate pool further before presenting a handful to the hiring manager.

Why are companies doing this? Companies with strong cultures want to keep them that way so they want to hire talent they can retain and that will be productive. Culture ‘fit’ has a direct correlation to employee engagement. Employee engagement, or lack thereof, positively or negatively, affects the company’s financial bottom line. And because a company’s talent is a huge expense (labor costs), they want to increase the likelihood that employees will want to stay for awhile and successfully apply their talents.

For decades, companies focused predominantly on hiring for ‘job fit’ and over time, it became harder and harder to attain their strategic and financial goals. While they were effectively hiring people who met, or exceeded, the job requirements – those chosen may not have been the best team members to work with. Most experienced workers have been on a team of people who fit their job requirements; yet, those same people were a wide spectrum of personalities from super team-oriented and conscientious to super self-centered bullies where the latter crushed the souls of the former and team productivity plummeted. While that was an extreme example, it shows my point. Who we are and how we behave while doing our work – now matter to employers much more than before. The current logic is that a company can train the skills gap (i.e. job fit) but hiring a self-centered bully that could decimate a team and/or a great culture is not in their best interest.

When people work in jobs that align their talents with their work responsibilities AND they work among people who have similar character and behavior traits and care about the same things they do, they typically like their work more and do more of it to help the company’s financial success. Data shows that engaged employees apply more discretionary effort to their work resulting in increased productivity, product innovation, improved customer experience, etc.

Job Fit recruiting is focused specifically on connecting minimum job requirements (i.e. years and type of experience, education (if applicable) and other competencies specific to the position and level.) Think of this as the task orientation part of a job. It answers the question of ‘could the candidate do the job tasks?’
Culture Fit recruiting is Job Fit (see above) PLUS assessing an individuals’ values, beliefs and attitudes and whether those are aligned with the company’s culture: core values, behavioral expectations and performance success factors.

To be successful in a job search, candidates now need to be qualified to do the job AND self aware. They need to know what they value, what their strengths are and be able to articulate how they’d fit with the organizational culture ~ which by their own uniqueness differentiates them from other candidates. There are many ways candidates can find this information out prior to taking an assessment by a potential employer. I always recommend job seekers attain this knowledge about themselves through career coaches, job placement and training companies so they can show self-awareness, build their confidence in their unique talent mix and show they’re open to personal and professional growth and development.

What many candidates forget when they get a phone call that begins the process, is that interviews are a way for both sides, Hiring Manager and Job Seeker, to make assessments about job fit and culture fit. Conscious Hiring Managers want to bring in talent that adds value and productivity to their team packaged inside a person who espouses similar values, attitudes and beliefs as their company to increase engagement. Job seekers deserve to find their tribe and bring all their talents to work in an environment aligned with their values, character traits and career aspirations — so they can be the best most productive versions of themselves at work.

People Matter in Business.

Cindy Goyette, CC, SPHR, MAOM – Maximizing Human Capital, Inc. 2019

By Coach Cindy

Conscious Communication is a Leadership Responsibility

July 17, 2018 | Leadership | No Comments

Whenever I take a road trip as an adult I’m reminded of my childhood when my family took long car trips. At regular intervals we’d ask, or sometimes whine, “Are we THERE yet??” Not unlike antsy backseat passengers, your employees have a continued interest in where your business is in relation to its journey (i.e. its direction and goals.) They have a good reason to because the status of how the business is doing in the big scheme of things directly impacts the work they do. Information and how effectively it is communicated through an organization has a direct correlation to employee productivity and engagement. That said, I’ve found that many leaders spend little time planning what information they will communicate to their employees. The simple truth is: Your employees want regular and relevant communication from you.

Employees need – and expect – specific types of communication at regular intervals.

From leaders, employees want to know and understand the ultimate goal. They need to hear the vision, the business strategy — broad direction with milestones and appreciation. Those sound like “We are still going in this direction…” and “Here is how we are doing in relation to our strategy…” and “Thank you all for helping us get to where we are.” Then, when the business needs to course correct – which it will – leaders need to let employees know that things will be changing. “We are going to change our direction and here is why…and how it affects what we’ve previously communicated.”

From direct managers, employees need to hear more granular information from what leaders provide. The information managers need to communicate is more specific to department activities and individuals’ job tasks. Employees expect ongoing dialogue with their manager because they want to do good work. They want to course correct as they go because they don’t want to have to redo their work – which wastes time and resources. They regularly need a chance to get clarification about their work and progress against goals, expectations of behaviors they exhibit, consequences, as well as, recognition and appreciation.

Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.
Rollo May

If you think about it, we condition people early in life to receive regular report cards when they’re in school; yet, when they get into the workforce, managers don’t effectively apply that concept. Part of a manager’s responsibility is effectively providing feedback, like a report card, to their employees on an ongoing basis. It’s part of managing performance. While the term ‘feedback’ typically gets a negative connotation, if managers are transparent in their communication – authentically share the positive and negative behaviors and outcomes they observe on a regular basis – it becomes a behavioral norm and part of organizational culture. Remember, employees expect it. People don’t come to work to suck at their jobs nor do they want their manager to think they do (suck) and not tell them directly and/or give them a chance to address the feedback and share their perspective. From this two-way dialogue, managers and employees are in a better position to gain each other’s trust and respect.

Regular organizational communication is important to business and human performance regardless of which levels of management it comes from.

If leaders don’t communicate frequently enough, employees fill in the gaps between what was last said and what they think is going on. It’s human nature. People will make up information in the absence of real data – which often creates a culture of uneasiness, worry, gossip and overall unnecessary drama. Having made up and/or misinformation circulating is never in an organizations best interest from a employee morale standpoint. If you are a leader and you aren’t sure of how often your employees need to hear from them – ASK THEM. Don’t assume you know.

All communication is a key organizational “system” that is as important as IT infrastructure and other business systems.

Think about the information you communicate as the leader of your organization as one of the most important tools your employees need in order to accomplish their jobs effectively. It’s truly that impactful on your business and by realizing that – you’ll spend more time on it and make it a priority. And, if you do make it a priority, you’ll see a positive return in the areas of employee productivity and organizational effectiveness.

Relevant communication is about providing audience focused information. That means – what’s important to THEM – not what’s important to you necessarily.

If you hold company meetings and regularly talk about stock value or bonus calculations and a majority of your workforce don’t own stock options, or if the bonuses they receive can barely pay for a tank of gas, consider communicating that information to a smaller subset of employees to whom it’s relevant. I’ve seen this happen too many times. While leaders think they are sharing “positive news” when the stock price is up or pending bonuses are significant, all the employees heard were executives ‘bragging about money they’re going to get’ and they leave feeling angry and unmotivated.

Understanding that your communication should consider the audience and what information is relevant to them, is paramount to your success. If you aren’t exactly sure of what kind of information your employees consider “relevant” and what they need to hear from you – ASK THEM.

And my final thought…when you hold a company meeting and the status of strategic projects has not changed, say so – because it’s the truth. The truth works – that’s transparency. If you can only tell part of something to the team due to confidentiality, tell them as much as you CAN say. If you’ve got no new information to share about topics you regularly cover in that meeting, you can always spend time saying “THANK YOU” and recognizing your hardworking people for their contributions.

People Matter in Business.

Cindy Goyette, CC, SPHR, MAOM – Maximizing Human Capital, Inc. 2018

By Coach Cindy

GREAT Leaders Have Followers, Do You?

October 16, 2017 | Leadership | No Comments

One of my favorite sayings is “Leadership is NOT about you. It’s about THEM.” I like it because it focuses on the fact that great leaders have followers. Followers are willing individuals who choose to follow because they believe the leader is going somewhere or doing something they, too, would like to experience. And, on any given day, a leaders’ following can be large, or small, depending on their actions and words. SIMPLE TRUTH: Employees want Leaders to Lead.

Years ago, I was at an off-site meeting where the leader had planned for us to go hiking after we’d sat all morning listening to presentations. He’d been at the location before, but none of rest of us had. So, when he swiftly hiked off leaving us behind, we were unclear as to which way to go when we encountered a fork in the path and our leader was nowhere in sight. I had been coaching the executive for a couple months by then and I laughed out loud because the situation was indicative of his leadership behaviors in the office. He often spent time alone believing he had to solve all of the organization’s problems himself. Many times, he believed he had given directions to people but actually he had never said anything out loud to them. His direct reports had previously voiced frustrations to him about his leadership style, so it wasn’t surprising that everyone stopped at the fork in the path. Collectively, we stood there wondering how long it would take our leader to notice we weren’t following him. When he came back yelling expletives, one team member said, “You didn’t make it clear where we were going, or even if you wanted us to come with you. How were we supposed to know? You didn’t say anything.”

If you strive to be a successful leader, you need to know that followers have expectations of you. Articulating direction and business plans to your organization is not seen as a one-time or even a once-a-quarter event by your followers. They want you to regularly communicate vision/direction, current state of the business and any changes that occur because those all effect their job activities. You being personally involved and physically present in the day-to-day operations of your organization is important to them. Your followers expect you to engage with them. They want you to walk among them, ask their opinions and listen to their ideas. Companies spend a lot of time, energy and money hiring smart people who have solutions to many of their business problems; yet, most leaders don’t spend enough time collecting these insights or putting them to use.

If you lead without understanding your follower’s expectations, human behaviors in your organization are negatively impacted. Just like the frustrated management team was out there at the fork in the path, without a regular infusion of leadership direction, your people are unsure of what needs to happen next. Their productivity stalls while they wait for information — or they take action without direction — which may result in work having to be redone later when clear information is forthcoming. Both frustrate your employees, cost you resources and make your organization ineffective. [NOTE: By providing direction, I don’t mean your followers expect you to tell them what to do or how to do their jobs. They know that. What they want is for you to provide the bigger picture view of what the outcome you’re expecting looks like so they can align their work accordingly (e.g. “We need to complete and launch product X by Y date so that our customers can Z and we can to stay on our strategic course”)]

Another expectation followers have of you, their leader, is that there are consequences for not meeting the goals they set. While it may surprise you, followers respect leaders that determine and communicate what will happen to individuals, teams, or the whole organization, if performance goals aren’t met. While holding people accountable can be hard, leaving unmet goals unaddressed can also be hard. Leaders then risk losing their most talented followers who are aware of what’s happened and grow frustrated when low performing individuals or teams get to lag behind without direct consequences.

To recap,

Learn what your followers expectations are of you as their leader and provide clear direction that allows them to effectively follow you
Walk among them in all areas of the business to regularly listen their ideas and solutions to your business problems
Drive accountability behaviors that include having consequences and applying them consistently – if your expectations are not met.

It’s important. People Matter in Business.

Cindy Goyette, SPHR, MAOM – Maximizing Human Capital, Inc. 2017

By Coach Cindy

There Was A Time When ‘GREAT’ Managers Were A Thing

August 29, 2017 | Leadership | No Comments

You don’t have to look far to find articles about employee engagement because they’re everywhere lately. And it’s not surprising that these articles continue to provide reminders that the quality of an employee’s direct manager remains in the Top 3 of the most important factors that affect their level of engagement.

Most employees will tell you there certainly is a direct correlation with their manager’s availability and abilities and the positive, or negative, affect those have on their day-to-day morale and productivity. Employees would even go on to say that their long-term commitment to your company is connected to whether or not they believe their manager can help them grow and develop in their career.

Leaders of today may not know how we got here continuing to struggle with manager quality which is still a leading cause of turnover of talent. After reading this, I hope you feel compelled to shift your perspective about how managers spend their time and make the needed changes for the good of your whole organization. The story goes something like this…executives that came before you created what is now the standard of organizational management that you may be propagating without really knowing why or considering an alternative to.

Within the last two decades, many companies made widespread organizational changes affecting managers that became the management model used today that continues to negatively impact employee engagement and productivity. Since the early 2000’s, executives came to believe there was too much “management redundancy” in their companies. They chose to cut most, if not all, middle management positions in the pursuit of massive savings by reducing payroll and other overhead costs associated with them. Thousands of managers were swiftly terminated and shown the door.

By cutting middle managers, executives effectively removed professionals whose full-time job was to manage people. These managers knew how to hire, they knew the individual talents of each team member, what motivated them and how to coach performance because that’s what they spent 100% of their time focused on doing. They understood human behavior and had their pulse on the collective workforce heartbeat. Their roles were important to employee morale, engagement, operational effectiveness and profitability of businesses. However, because unconscious executives didn’t see the value in the “soft skills” espoused by great managers of yesteryear, they considered them expendable and rationalized their decisions by the resulting cost savings.

As the displaced professional managers started their own companies becoming the management consultants, trainers and business coaches of today, the unlucky individual contributors directly beneath those terminated were ‘promoted’. What companies then did was effectively re-title individual contributors to managers expecting them to perform a full plate of individual contributor job duties – in addition to – expecting them to manage people. Overnight, these newly flattened companies became grossly ineffective as they moved forward with less expensive, but also overwhelmed and in many cases, incompetent managers.

Fast forward to today and we still see the result of the organization flattening, middle management decimating actions that took place. In many sectors and sizes of companies, business performance is down. If you’ve become a leader in the last decade, you likely think it’s normal to have managers with a full plate of individual contributor work who, on the side, are also expected to manage a team of people.

Now retired executives made managing and inspiring employees a “nice to have” instead of realizing it should be a non-negotiable business activity. How do you think a company is going to have engaged employees and higher productivity if its’ managers manage people when they ‘get around to it’? THIS is the reality of organizational management today. This is why, for decades, generations of managers have continued to struggle to be effective. If you want different results, do something different.

Now retired executives made managing and inspiring employees a “nice to have” instead of realizing it should be a non-negotiable business activity. How do you think a company is going to have engaged employees and higher productivity if its’ managers manage and lead people when they ‘get around to it’?
Cindy Goyette, CC, SPHR, MA

Management used to be an actual job where managing and inspiring employees’ success was a full-time responsibility. It was a career path in and of itself and it was differentiated from that of individual contributors who could choose a non-management career path if they didn’t have the personality, skills, or frankly, the desire to manage people.

And today, while there are employee-focused companies providing sound options of management skills training, degree programs and other great support to their people managers, it’s not solely about building managers’ competence or skills. It’s about leaders supporting their people managers and increasing the time they spend enabling employee success while de-creasing the time they are expected to spend on doing individual contributor type work. This is an area you have complete control over.

Your managers want be successful and some of them even want to become great leaders in your company. Your employees need their manager to be competent in management responsibilities AND have the availability, authority and resources to enable their success. Availability being the operative word here. Both want their managers to have permission from you to take the time needed to manage and lead people. This includes translating strategic direction into expected actions and deliverables, providing immediate performance feedback, useful coaching, appropriate recognition and job skills training as needed. How much, or how little time, managers spend developing their people is of paramount importance to the engagement and productivity of your workforce. Companies spend significant time and effort attracting and hiring talent but continue to leave their managers overwhelmed with project work and little time to focus on managing and inspiring their people.

Employees feel valued when you take the time to develop quality managers that enable their success. It is in your control as a leader to make sure they know what to do as a manager, have time to do it, are measured on how well they do it (i.e. provided 360 feedback) and that they are held accountable to their performance if they don’t. Your support of these efforts by being at the forefront of your company modeling the management and leadership skills you expect of managers will positively affect employee engagement and your company’s performance. It’s important.

People Matter in Business.

Cindy Goyette, SPHR, MAOM – Maximizing Human Capital, Inc. 2017

By Coach Cindy

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The uncomfortable truth:

So, what does work? What should leaders do instead?

The bottom line